3/12 - planted two rows of sugar snap peas (days are around 50 degrees; nights getting near 35, yikes!)
3/27 - planted lettuce, spinach, a 3rd row of snap peas (days between 50 and 60 degrees)
3/29 - put stakes along each pea row; started tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, and creeping thyme in basement; C laid an awesome brick path to our garden spigot reminiscent of one found aside a quaint English cottage--preferably one with a thatch roof and a hobbit inside. I hope to plant some creeping thyme that might fill in the cracks between the bricks...
--
4/4 - scheduled delivery of 3 cubic yards of pine bark mulch, 40 lbs of composted cow manure, and a bag of potting soil.
--
Just contacted a guy selling white plastic 55-gal barrels... Gonna try to make a rain barrel for the yard. Yeehaw. Hopefully, when I get my act together, I will post photos and instructions! Woop
March 30, 2009
Garden
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
would love to hear how you set up the rain barrel drum... does this have any affect on plants, grasses etc. that rely on rain water naturally watering them? just curious.
ReplyDeleteI've got some ideas but no final plan to build yet so I'll get back to you.
ReplyDeleteTheoretically, this is capturing only rain water to be redistributed to the vegetable garden instead of through the downspout and periodically flooding a low point at the edge of my neighbor's yard. Otherwise I'd be using city water which might have some extra minerals in it (not sure if Fluoride is still put in water or what other additives). The guy who sold me the barrel was saying [barrel collected] rain water will work wonders on a garden as opposed to city water, and I guess it makes sense.
I said "theoretically" before because I guess, technically, rain water is washing stuff off my roof like bird poop and leaf debris - which is pretty much like manure and compost - and also shingle debris which isn't as cool. Oh well...
And the last question that I think you might have been asking is about natural rain events versus artificial watering...? Last year I didn't add much water to my garden and it suffered by mid-late summer. A vegetable garden, just like a mowed lawn, is extremely artificial and needs some human manipulation, specifically in the form of regular watering.
I hope to eventually have a pretty rad native landscape that can tolerate dry Ohio summers and cold winters. That would help with water conversation a lot.
I'll keep you updated!